So, yes. According to THQ bossman Danny Bilson a new Relic RTS will be announced in August 2011. But what could it be? Carefully placing my speculation coronet on my head, I am able to say that it will probably be a new Company Of Heroes game. The Company Of Heroes Online project seems to have sputtered out, so the devs from that will have to use their expertise somewhere else. We’re unlikely to get a “new” Dawn Of War game (there’s got to be at least one more expansion for 2 in the pipeline) and as far as I understand it the Homeworld franchise is entombed somewhere deep in the bowls of ActiBlizzard. THQ does own Homeworld after all. So CoH it probably is.

Unless – gasp! – it’s something that is actually new. Could it really be possible? Maybe they will do an Epic scale 40K RTS. That might be fun/impossible. Any thoughts, internet?

“Because I am fairly certain Relic said “not possible” recently.” – They only said that they’d like to make it but don’t see a chance for it currently, or something like that, not that it’s not possible… it’s very much possible considering the THQ acquisition of copyrights to the series.

“Homeworld 2 had a number of design flaws that made it less good” – it wasn’t the design flaws, it was the storyline being a flaw. Game by design was really good, one may argue that it was better than Homeworld 1 during it’s initial release.
But the storyline… bleah… gods and saving the world – that’s just too flat.
All the politics, struggle for survival feel, deep involving storyline was gone. Pity cause HW2 got many improvements over first one from the series looking from the UI and gameplay perspective (ok, ships exploding in huge numbers and negligible survivability of frigates were gameplay big flaws but still… it was really well made attempt to create a balance by diversity not by duplication of sides.).

All of this makes me very, very happy. For one thing, it seems to be “in vogue” to replicate the feats of ten years ago now. For another, most of these are PC-centric or even PC-exclusive titles, which makes me happy inside.

On the other hand, my budget can only take so much abuse before it fails completely…

The only thing known for certain about Titan, which seems to have to be repeated each time it comes up, is that it’s not an existing franchise. It’s a brand new IP. It’s not “game X – the MMO” because it’s not based on any existing game/book/movie/knitting pattern. It’s completely new, imagined and built from the ground up. Capiche?

A few years ago (three?) in the relic fans forums they discovered that someone had secured the homeworld license, and he was the lawyer for thq/relic, so people got hyped. Of course time passed and DoW / CoH product were released, with no sign of Homeworld.

Cat Herd 4000, a strategy game where you have to herd cats into an enclosure, and all the while avoiding beams of sunlight, balls of twine and string. Features destructible terrain, ragdoll corpses and tuna.

“I mean what battle ever starts with hang on I just need to build a base….”
The fun ones, y’know, the ones before DoW2. Relic have destroyed two franchises now, their third franchise probably only still intact because it’s not had a sequel yet. I’m hoping for the epic scale 40k game to give me back the fun DoW1 had.

I want either 1) Homeworld 3 or 2) New IP. Generally I’m a proponent of new IPs over sequels, but Homeworld was unique enough and it’s been long enough that a 3D space RTS would be almost new at this point.

‘Another’ as in ‘an additional one’ as in ‘in addition to the one plus expansions plus temporary free-to-play version that already exist/have existed’.
As in, I’d rather not play another Company of Heroes game when there is an infinite variety of different games that could be made.
Edit: Egh, sorry, that came off really snarky. I’ve never played Homeworld and the idea of a space RTS excites me – I loved Sins of a Solar Empire – whereas the idea of a WW2 game makes me sigh a bit.

I think the Company of Heroes and Dawn of War games are sufficiently similar that having a sequel of each would be somewhat redundant in terms of gameplay. I think it would be of greater interest to see what else Relic can concoct. I have confidence that they would be able to provide something original of interest.

August 2011 seems far too far away to be announcing that they’ll be announcing something. I’m going to make an equally meaningless prediction that it’ll be a new IP with less shootybangs, since they probably want to try something different. We’re about due a new RTS set in the ancient era if you ask me.

I want a homeworld game, but since they can use the 40k license they can make a Battlefleet Gothic game. The story can be a dynamic campaign following a Tyranid Hive fleet who go about fighting everything, and then eating everything down to bare rocks. Just like you would harvest everything in homeworld.

No it’d be rubbish as it would be battlefleet gothic with home ships that build units for you during battles and ships that can turn on the head of a pin. BFG is basically an age of sail style board game as the ships all have momentum, poor turning arcs and fire broadsides at one another. I think Empire TW has shown us that noone has the balls to actually make a game which represents that, instead everything will rotate on the spot and be naff.

Mmmm seems like many here want a worthy successor to Homeworld, while others love the Dawn of War games and 40k in general.
So…
Homeworld + Warhammer 40k = Battlefleet Gothic!
There everyone’s happy :)

Please please let it be homeworld!
The talk of outcast and sacrifice would make me put homeworld in the same pot. Games of slightly off-centre genre twists but with unique vision that has really not been bettered.

If that meant you were playing as a space-based marine trying to capture ships in the middle of huge battles, then I think that could be a winner, especially if there were fighter sections.

Make it semi-open in terms of how you capture them, in that you chose the point where your shuttle can breach the hull, and you fight through what looks like a functional ship on the inside, securing engine room, bridge, main computer system, comms, etc.

yep, there was once a dispute on how to make a good Homeworld FPS.
Step one: Forget you’ve seen Dead Space and the Homeworld: Cataclysm. ;)
Step two: Allow 3D combat – meaning: Let us fight in no-gravity environments and make an AI that would do it (kinda a breakthrough for the FPS)
Step three: No stupid aliens. But use the HW techs, so: lots of kinetic guns and give Vaygr their pulsed beam.
Step four: Give freedom of commanding the squad (using system similar to RepCommando though with bit more tactics) and let player choose the way of capturing ship, don’t create super-specific objectives like it’s in all other FPSes – linear and lack of thinking == boring.
Step five – allow player to control the approach to the ship and picking the point where to breach the hull.
Step six: Profit from creating most awesome FPS ever! :D :D :D ;)

The only thing we can be sure of is that it’s a sequel to something in a existing genre. Large game companies and movie studios don’t do creative risk taking. Hopefully they’ll add a new game mechanic or a heavy-handed “social online community subscription” kludge in there somewhere. Yes, I’ve given up on hope and love.

Relic, god damn it, how can you not release the HW3 after THQ buying the rights to series?! I want to play it before the end of world, which means: before end of next year, or death in flames gonna seriously sux… after going through whole game though I’ll be ready to face it in a glory a pure happiness!

An epic scale 40k strategy game would be great, it’s been ages since Final Liberation. I was always a bit disappointed that Dawn of War II was at a skirmish scale, I’d like to see a few titans stomping around.
But then a new Company of Heroes would also be amazing, even if the original still somehow doesn’t seem very dated.

I also wonder if a Warhammer Fantasy skirmish game – in the DoWII mould – could work. Doing away with units of infantry and having gangs or bands of heroes.

It should be Homeworld 3 with Taiidan, Hiigaran, and Beast as playable races. Make sure that the multiplayer server browser doesn’t suck. Include a BlackOps style theater mode so we can record and post “Lets Plays” and commentaries to YouTube.

Is it possible that at some point in the future they could do a sort of three-tiered RTS based on WH40K, the first tier being planet based action on the order of Epic 40K, the second tier being starship combat as per Battlefleet Gothic, and the third tier being inter-ship boarding like Space Hulk, on the same scale as current Dawn Of War? With that kind of scale, they could do a complete re-telling of the Horus Heresy.

Imagine the kind of co-op play you could get if those missions were happing at the same time. “Dude, seriously, quit the friendly fire with the orbital bombardment already!”

I’d like to see a 4X or large-scale WH40k game. That would make me super happy.

Given the recent closure of COHO, though, you’d think they’d want to re-establish traction for the CoH brand, yeah? I mean, that game still holds a warm place in most peoples’ hearts. Plus it sold well, I think.